Kaua’i 1-0: Day 1.

Had an early flight out one fantastic Monday morning. A preview screening of the new Hawai’i Five-O and an airplane “frittata” later, and I found myself landed in Kaua’i! I hadn’t been to Kaua’i before, and the trip with Bill and his parents was fantastic. I didn’t go off the grid entirely, but I sent only one email out the entire week. (I read every email that came in, but I swear I only sent out one!) I feel like I finally caught up with myself. It took the constant distraction of one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, but I needed it all. Especially that first taste of kalua pig on a taro bun (Taro bun!) as my first Kaua’ian meal.

In-flight disappointment.One of the first notable things to happen between SFO and LIH was a woman across the aisle from me on my flight into Oahu. She looked like a native Hawai’ian, mainly based on her mumu, how she looked, and her major case of obesity. Nowadays native Hawai’ians are significantly impoverished. I’m guessing a mix of the original standard of beauty being “healthy” looking women and a lack of available nutrition in poorer communities led to this woman and many like her being overweight, or at least “big.”

It was the first time I had ever seen someone request and use the extender for an airline seatbelt.

Here’s Waimea Canyon.

And here is a super un-special feral chicken.The wild chickens of Kaua’i are protected by the state. It’s a long story beginning with an initial population of wild chickens. And then one of many outside settlers came in and introduced their own fancy chickens to the island. The indigenous chickens and the foreign chickens began to cross-breed, and in the meantime, the original home of the outsider chickens witnessed the extinction of its chickens. In 1992 Hurricane Iniki threw off the chickens’ population even more and their numbers boomed. The chickens never had a natural predator to begin with, meaning, more eggs! Thus the Kaua’ian government couldn’t distinguish which chickens running around were the Kaua’i chickens or the outsider chickens (then recognized as “rare”), so they just said “Don’t touch the chickens.”

So now, if you get caught stealing a chicken to eat the chicken or to admire its feathers, you can be arrested and fined.

The Kaua’i Chicken: Running around a strip mall parking lot near you. (If you are in Kaua’i.)

Such a sunset.Poipu Beach, such the perfect dusk to experience on the first night on vacation. Bill and I got our feet cut up by the coral, but we also saw some pretty little fishies! On our way to dinner at Dolphin (Stay tuned for that story!), a tourist who said he was leaving the islands the next day gave us two beach mats. Eventually we left them in the condo we rented. Payin’ it forward!

We didn’t make it to any surfing during the trip, but next Hawai’ian time around, I wanna do that and paddle-boarding!